The Golden Cage (17 page)

The palace was always quiet at this early hour. A few bleary-eyed servants stumbled about their morning duties, and sleepy guards wilted at their posts, waiting for their relief to arrive, but mostly the long corridors and echoing halls were empty. Prince Dafydd liked this time of day. He could go about his business unchallenged, and without the constant worry that he might bump into either King Ballah or, worse, Tordu, the palace major domo.

That
his great-uncle disliked both him and Prince Geraint was no great secret; Tordu had never forgiven Ballah's eldest for allowing Balch to be sent to the Twin Kingdoms. He viewed Dafydd's marriage to Iolwen as a betrayal, their unborn child as an ill-fated omen heralding the destruction of the royal house. Lately Tordu had been seeing omens in everything, from the patterns of migrating birds to the strange disappearance of the spy Errol. Dafydd wondered whether the major domo knew that the boy had turned up back at Emmass Fawr. Almost certainly he did; he seemed to have his own spies everywhere. It would no doubt feed his paranoia even more.

The stables were quiet as Dafydd entered the courtyard, though light spilled from the open door of the tack room. The sky was just beginning to show the first sign of dawn, the tinge of pink on the undersides of the clouds that heralded unsettled weather. He cursed under his breath. Spring had been fine so far, if cold. He hated travelling in the wet. Well, it couldn't be helped now. His mind was made up, and the messages had been sent. There could be no turning back.

A lone dog raised its head and stared at him as he pushed the door wider, feeling the warmth of the stove on his face. Recognizing him as a friend, it thumped its tail twice on the floor then went back to snoozing. Dafydd slipped silently through the rows of immaculately clean harness, the leather shiny and supple, the bits and buckles gleaming. He breathed in the heady aroma of saddle soap and liniment, the smell of horses. As a child this had been one of his favourite places, a retreat from the endless bustle and protocol of the palace proper. Here he had played
games with the stable boys, heedless of rank or deference. Prince Geraint had been happy for him to mix with the rougher lads, keen for him to learn real horsemanship; it was one of the few things Dafydd had done that had pleased his father.

‘Your Highness, you should have sent word. I'd have had your horse ready.'

Dafydd turned to see the ruddy-faced figure of Teryll, the senior stable hand. Teryll and he were of an age, had grown up together. If a prince of the royal house of Ballah could have a friend among the common people, then Teryll was just that. Dafydd knew he could count on his loyalty and above all his discretion.

‘I can saddle a horse as well as any man, Teryll.' He slapped the man hard on the shoulder. ‘And you know it.'

‘Ah, but if you tend to your own beasts, then where'll a useless layabout like me find work, eh? What were you after, sir, taking one of the fillies out for a dawn canter?'

‘No Teryll, not today.' Dafydd looked nervously around the tack room, trying to see if any of the other stable hands were about. It seemed empty, but he knew they would all be starting to wake. Their dormitory was directly overhead, stretching the upper length of the long building that formed one side of the courtyard. Not wishing to be overheard by any other early risers, he lowered his voice, bending close to Teryll. ‘I need two horses made ready for a long journey. One for Princess Iolwen, so I'll need a side saddle.'

‘I'll get Keffl and Melly ready straight away, sir.' Teryll made to turn, but Dafydd stopped him.

‘No, Teryll. Not those two. I don't want … people
thinking we've gone far. This is a secret mission so nobody must know. And we'll need another two horses to carry provisions and luggage.'

Teryll nodded, his eyes showing a gleam of excitement that reminded Dafydd of some of the more daring escapades they had undertaken in their childhood. ‘I'll have them ready in twenty minutes, sir.'

‘Thank you, Teryll. I knew I could count on you. But we can't come for them here. Take them to the corner of Philum Street, at the back of the merchants' quarter. We'll meet you there in one hour.'

Teryll nodded his understanding, reaching up to select bridles from the rack. Dafydd saw that they were from the common stock, not the elegant and expensive harness reserved for royalty. He smiled once more at his old friend, turned and hurried away, hoping that Iolwen would be ready by the time he returned to their chambers.

Benfro's head pounded as if he had been drinking wine by the flagon the night before. It was worse even than the time he had first eaten at Magog's table, in the retreat at the top of Mount Arnahi. Back then his whole body hadn't ached like he had fallen down a mountainside, and his throat hadn't been raw as if he had shouted at the top of his lungs for an hour. Now he could scarcely move without a thousand different parts of his body screaming at him to stop.

Opening one eye slowly so as to avoid any more pain than was necessary, he tried to work out where he was. It was difficult to remember anything except talking to Corwen, then almost crashing when he had tried to fly. But
that felt like it had been a lifetime ago. There were disjointed, jumbled images of things that had happened since, but he could put them in no logical order. Carrying Errol back to the cave, both of them soaking wet; flying with buzzards, reading the air currents to gain maximum height with minimum effort; seeing the whole of Gwlad spread out beneath him, a world to conquer; watching a winged dragon wheel around the broken towers of Cenobus.

Benfro blinked both eyes open, sitting up too fast as all the memories tumbled into place. No wonder he felt like a tree had fallen on him. Of all the feelings that could have swept over him, it was embarrassment that heated his face. He had allowed himself to become so distracted, he had forgotten to fly. He was lucky to be alive.

‘You're awake. Good. How do you feel?'

Benfro looked over to the alcove where the grass bed had been. Only now there was just an empty space, the floor a mix of dark earth and black ash. The cave walls were black too, and he dimly remembered breathing fire. Too much fire. His leather bag leaned against the wall, its flap open, revealing the glint of gold within, and the last few bits of missing memory dropped into place

‘Dreadful.' He looked down at the floor where he had lain, brushed soft red earth from his arms and breathed in that alluring spice smell. It was overlaid with something even better, a meaty soup aroma, and he finally looked round to where Errol was sitting between the fire and the back wall of the cave. He had propped the small cauldron against the banked-up fire and was stirring something within. Benfro rubbed at his face with his palms, easing
away his headache, then shuffled closer to the flames. Every muscle in his body creaked and complained.

‘You fall from the sky.' Errol's command of Draigiaith was much better than Benfro's ability to speak the language of men, but it was still far from perfect. At least they could communicate. He was grateful for that.

‘I was distracted. I saw …' Benfro wondered how he could explain what it was he had seen. It made no sense to him as a memory. He was hundreds of miles from Cenobus, and yet he had seen the place as if he were just a few wing beats away. And he had seen the dragon's features as if he were flying alongside him. ‘I saw another dragon, flying. But I don't know how that can be.'

‘Are there no other dragons that can fly?'

‘I don't know. I wish …'

‘No dragon has flown in this sphere for many hundreds of years.' Benfro looked around to see Corwen sitting in the same spot where he had first appeared all those months ago. ‘Our legends tell of a time when we were lords of the air, and you know now that our legends have more truth in them than we thought. I grew up with wings far larger than those that burned with me when I died. But I never flew. We had made our choice long before my hatching.'

‘You said that before,' Errol said. ‘About making a choice. What did you mean? Did you choose to become smaller?'

‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose we did. We chose to become less noticeable, and so we shrank physically, though our minds stayed sharp. Over time the difference became more and more ingrained. Frecknock is fully
grown, but she would have been mistaken for a hatchling of one or two summers by my parents.'

Benfro scowled at the mention of Frecknock's name. He didn't care if she shrank away to nothing, if Queen Beulah sliced her head off with a blade of light.

‘What of the dragons who took … What did you call it? The long road?' Errol spoke in his own language and it took a moment for Benfro to grasp the meaning of his final words. He had heard something similar before but couldn't place it.

‘Fewer and fewer of us made that choice, though it has always been open to us.' Corwen switched to Draigiaith and turned to Benfro. ‘Your father was the last dragon I knew to make it, though I suppose you have too, in a way.'

‘My father?' Benfro forgot his headache, his aches and pains, even the gurgling in his stomach that Errol's cauldron of broth had provoked. ‘What do you know of him?'

‘A great deal, Benfro,' Corwen said. ‘Sir Trefaldwyn was once a pupil of mine, like your mother. He was quite her opposite though. Impetuous and headstrong, impatient too, now I come to think of it. And his head was always full of the most wild nonsense. I guess he passed a lot of that on to you.'

‘What nonsense?' Benfro felt a flash of anger that the old dragon could be so rude about his father, then wondered why he should feel that way. He'd never met Sir Trefaldwyn after all.

‘Well the last time I saw him he was full of some story he'd heard from a dragon who lived down in the Hendry boglands, far to the south of here. He said he was searching for the portal to another world, identical to this one,
but where dragons ruled the air and men knew nothing of the subtle arts. It was a fool's quest, and I told him so at the time. But he insisted on … Oh.'

‘What?' To Benfro's horror, Corwen had faded almost to nothing, his face contorting in apparent pain. Benfro hauled himself to his feet, heading across the cave to try and help his master, but the old dragon waved him away. He seemed to be struggling with something and Benfro had a suspicion he knew just what it was. He concentrated for a moment, shifting his view until he could see the Llinellau and his own aura, the long pale rose cord looping away from him to fuse with the nearest of the lines. It was unprotected, and instinctively he knotted his aura around it, cutting off Magog's malign influence even though for once he had felt nothing of the dead mage's presence. Looking into the corner of the cave, where the shrunken ghostly image of Corwen struggled against an unseen foe, Benfro realized why.

Magog wasn't attacking him; he was concentrating all his efforts on Corwen.

Without a thought for his own safety, Benfro leaped forward. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he wasn't going to let the one friend he had left in the world be destroyed. He tried to see where Magog was mounting his attack from; there had to be a point, a connection like the one that tied him so tightly. But Corwen was not alive. He was a projection of memories, and as he struggled and faded, Benfro could see only a dull blood-red glow seeping over him, washing him away.

‘Find … Sir Trefaldwyn …' Corwen's voice was a distant echo in the back of Benfro's mind. ‘Find … Gog.' At
the name Benfro felt a surge of anger, a hatred so visceral it almost knocked him out, even though his best defences were up.

‘I have to help you first.' He moved closer to the almost invisible image. Part of it repelled him, as if the old dragon was pushing him away, but part of it drew him in. He could see beyond the fading figure into a dark cavern where a pile of jewels sat on a raised stone dais. They were white, but a miasma of red filled the whole cave, pulsing out from a familiar lone jewel placed on the edge of the dais. One small stone should not have been able to overcome so many, and yet it radiated an evil power that was like a wall of heat.

‘You … must … not …' Corwen's voice was forced, but it had about it something of that power that had once immobilized him completely. Benfro felt himself receding from the cave even as he understood that he had been travelling the Llinellau towards it. Then at the last moment he noticed one other jewel, pale and white, shielded from Magog by the bulk of Corwen's memories. He knew without a doubt whose it was; knew also that he could not leave it. Reaching out as he had done when bringing himself food, he tried to summon his mother's last remaining jewel to himself.